tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61159242322285743012024-09-05T23:09:17.515-07:00Computer Program And Computer Trick And tips Also For Using Internet multimedia information mshakeelsahilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10872964509307176630noreply@blogger.comBlogger21420125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115924232228574301.post-7373685186244657742022-02-08T11:33:00.001-08:002022-02-08T11:33:25.127-08:00<p><em>New York Times</em> reporter Jeremy Peters says the religious right and social conservatives "got basically everything that they wanted" from Trump's presidency. Peters' new book is <em>Insurgency.</em></p> <img src='https://media.npr.org/include/images/tracking/npr-rss-pixel.png?story=1079191067' /><br /> <br /> from Culture : NPR https://ift.tt/fxoCwb4<br /> via <a href="https://ifttt.com/?ref=da&amp;site=blogger">IFTTT</a> mshakeelsahilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10872964509307176630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115924232228574301.post-28687545320457477352022-02-08T11:18:00.001-08:002022-02-08T11:18:22.369-08:00Google Chrome is rolling out Journeys, a feature that lets you revisit your old browsing sessions based on the subject matter you were searching for. From a report: If you type a word in the address bar that's related to some convoluted rabbit hole you've been down in the past, you'll see a "Resume your research" option that links you to the related sites you've visited before. So far, it sounds like it could be a much more viable solution than digging through your search history for that one site you kind of remember visiting three weeks ago. If you were knee-deep in research about axolotls, you should see all the related pages you accessed in Journeys whenever you type in the creature's name at a later date. The Journeys page will prominently display the sites you've spent more time on and will also provide suggestions based on what you've searched for. <div class="share_submission" style="position:relative;"><a class="slashpop" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Chrome's+New+Tool+Lets+You+Revisit+Your+Old+Google+Rabbit+Holes%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F3sqzIu3"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png" /></a> <a class="slashpop" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fslashdot.org%2Fstory%2F22%2F02%2F08%2F1733246%2Fchromes-new-tool-lets-you-revisit-your-old-google-rabbit-holes%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png" /></a></div> <p><a href="https://slashdot.org/story/22/02/08/1733246/chromes-new-tool-lets-you-revisit-your-old-google-rabbit-holes?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&amp;utm_medium=feed">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <iframe src="https://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discuss&amp;id=20757221&amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"></iframe><br /> <br /> from Slashdot https://ift.tt/nT4BdAe<br /> via <a href="https://ifttt.com/?ref=da&amp;site=blogger">IFTTT</a> mshakeelsahilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10872964509307176630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115924232228574301.post-50105629113688886632022-02-08T10:33:00.001-08:002022-02-08T10:33:55.368-08:00<img src='https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2022/02/08/oscar-predictions-1-_wide-476fbb401cbf48f774176965969917ed465d5486.jpg?s=600' alt='Kirsten Dunst (The Power of the Dog), Denzel Washington (The Tragedy of Macbeth), Flee and Drive My Car are among this year' s="" oscar="" /> <p>Fears of an #Oscarssowhite redux go largely unfounded in this year's acting nominations, and the actress categories provided some real surprises. The battle for best picture will be fascinating.</p> <p>(Image credit: Netflix; Apple TV+; NEON; Janus Films)</p> <img src='https://media.npr.org/include/images/tracking/npr-rss-pixel.png?story=1078829501' /><br /> <br /> from Culture : NPR https://ift.tt/WuT1Yv0<br /> via <a href="https://ifttt.com/?ref=da&amp;site=blogger">IFTTT</a> mshakeelsahilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10872964509307176630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115924232228574301.post-40581069826876784922022-02-08T10:18:00.001-08:002022-02-08T10:18:47.109-08:00An anonymous reader shares a report: Imagine for a moment that the millions of computer chips inside the servers that power the largest data centers in the world had rare, almost undetectable flaws. And the only way to find the flaws was to throw those chips at giant computing problems that would have been unthinkable just a decade ago. As the tiny switches in computer chips have shrunk to the width of a few atoms, the reliability of chips has become another worry for the people who run the biggest networks in the world. Companies like Amazon, Facebook, Twitter and many other sites have experienced surprising outages over the last year. The outages have had several causes, like programming mistakes and congestion on the networks. But there is growing anxiety that as cloud-computing networks have become larger and more complex, they are still dependent, at the most basic level, on computer chips that are now less reliable and, in some cases, less predictable. In the past year, researchers at both Facebook and Google have published studies describing computer hardware failures whose causes have not been easy to identify. The problem, they argued, was not in the software -- it was somewhere in the computer hardware made by various companies. Google declined to comment on its study, while Facebook did not return requests for comment on its study. "They're seeing these silent errors, essentially coming from the underlying hardware," said Subhasish Mitra, a Stanford University electrical engineer who specializes in testing computer hardware. Increasingly, Dr. Mitra said, people believe that manufacturing defects are tied to these so-called silent errors that cannot be easily caught. Researchers worry that they are finding rare defects because they are trying to solve bigger and bigger computing problems, which stresses their systems in unexpected ways. Companies that run large data centers began reporting systematic problems more than a decade ago. In 2015, in the engineering publication IEEE Spectrum, a group of computer scientists who study hardware reliability at the University of Toronto reported that each year as many as 4 percent of Google's millions of computers had encountered errors that couldn't be detected and that caused them to shut down unexpectedly. In a microprocessor that has billions of transistors -- or a computer memory board composed of trillions of the tiny switches that can each store a 1 or 0 -- even the smallest error can disrupt systems that now routinely perform billions of calculations each second. <div class="share_submission" style="position:relative;"><a class="slashpop" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=As+the+Largest+Computer+Networks+Continue+To+Grow%2C+Some+Engineers+Fear+that+Their+Smallest+Components+Could+Prove+To+Be+an+Achilles'+Heel%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F3smHuFn"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png" /></a> <a class="slashpop" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftech.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F22%2F02%2F08%2F1652256%2Fas-the-largest-computer-networks-continue-to-grow-some-engineers-fear-that-their-smallest-components-could-prove-to-be-an-achilles-heel%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png" /></a></div> <p><a href="https://tech.slashdot.org/story/22/02/08/1652256/as-the-largest-computer-networks-continue-to-grow-some-engineers-fear-that-their-smallest-components-could-prove-to-be-an-achilles-heel?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&amp;utm_medium=feed">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <iframe src="https://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discuss&amp;id=20757057&amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"></iframe><br /> <br /> from Slashdot https://ift.tt/4MdI7Fy<br /> via <a href="https://ifttt.com/?ref=da&amp;site=blogger">IFTTT</a> mshakeelsahilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10872964509307176630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115924232228574301.post-34102982695392760842022-02-08T09:33:00.001-08:002022-02-08T09:33:21.704-08:00<img src='https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2022/02/08/joshneuman_wide-19579337e2c8e2e892af16748c63eb5386b5f91e.jpg?s=600' alt='Josh Neuman had filmed videos for YouTube since he was 12, according to his website, and has nearly 1.2 million subscribers on the platform.' /> <p>Neuman and three others were killed during a sightseeing flight to create commercial content for the Belgian streetwear brand Suspicious Antwerp. Neuman was 22.</p> <p>(Image credit: Screenshot by NPR/YouTube)</p> <img src='https://media.npr.org/include/images/tracking/npr-rss-pixel.png?story=1079190127' /><br /> <br /> from Culture : NPR https://ift.tt/ihv42BP<br /> via <a href="https://ifttt.com/?ref=da&amp;site=blogger">IFTTT</a> mshakeelsahilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10872964509307176630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115924232228574301.post-66175432134193301612022-02-07T14:18:00.001-08:002022-02-07T14:18:32.697-08:00New submitter Beerismydad writes: The IRS said Monday it will suspend the use of facial recognition technology to authenticate people who create online accounts after the practice was criticized by privacy advocates and lawmakers. The agency said it would no longer use a third-party service, called ID.me, for facial recognition. Critics of the software said the database could become a target for cyberthreats. They also expressed concern about how the information could be used by other government agencies, among other concerns. Earlier Monday, Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., called on the agency to end its use of the ID.me software. After the IRS announced the practice would be suspended, Wyden said "the Treasury Department has made the smart decision to direct the IRS to transition away from using the controversial ID.me verification service. No one should be forced to submit to facial recognition to access critical government services." <div class="share_submission" style="position:relative;"><a class="slashpop" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=IRS+To+End+Use+of+Facial+Recognition+To+Identify+Taxpayers%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F3LhbHhG"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png" /></a> <a class="slashpop" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fyro.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F22%2F02%2F07%2F212201%2Firs-to-end-use-of-facial-recognition-to-identify-taxpayers%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png" /></a></div> <p><a href="https://yro.slashdot.org/story/22/02/07/212201/irs-to-end-use-of-facial-recognition-to-identify-taxpayers?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&amp;utm_medium=feed">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <iframe src="https://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discuss&amp;id=20750441&amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"></iframe><br /> <br /> from Slashdot https://ift.tt/b6W8PiA<br /> via <a href="https://ifttt.com/?ref=da&amp;site=blogger">IFTTT</a> mshakeelsahilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10872964509307176630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115924232228574301.post-134234140226917772022-02-07T13:18:00.001-08:002022-02-07T13:18:02.325-08:00In one of the most impactful changes made in recent years, Microsoft has announced today that it will block by default the execution of VBA macro scripts inside five Office applications. From a report: Starting with early April 2022, Access, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, and Word users will not be able to enable macro scripts inside untrusted documents that they downloaded from the internet. The change, which security researchers have been requesting for years, is expected to put a serious roadblock for malware gangs, which have relied on tricking users into enabling the execution of a macro script as a way to install malware on their systems. In these attacks, users typically receive a document via email or which they are instructed to download from an internet website. When they open the file, the attacker typically leaves a message instructing the user to enable the execution of the macro script. While users with some technical and cybersecurity knowledge may be able to recognize this as a lure to get infected with malware, many day-to-day Office users are still unaware of this technique and end up following the provided instructions, effectively infecting themselves with malware. <div class="share_submission" style="position:relative;"><a class="slashpop" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Microsoft+To+Block+Internet+Macros+By+Default+in+Five+Office+Applications%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F3JbLO12"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png" /></a> <a class="slashpop" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fit.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F22%2F02%2F07%2F2038242%2Fmicrosoft-to-block-internet-macros-by-default-in-five-office-applications%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png" /></a></div> <p><a href="https://it.slashdot.org/story/22/02/07/2038242/microsoft-to-block-internet-macros-by-default-in-five-office-applications?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&amp;utm_medium=feed">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <iframe src="https://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discuss&amp;id=20750405&amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"></iframe><br /> <br /> from Slashdot https://ift.tt/iAEjy4d<br /> via <a href="https://ifttt.com/?ref=da&amp;site=blogger">IFTTT</a> mshakeelsahilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10872964509307176630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115924232228574301.post-53921794910899073022022-02-07T12:18:00.003-08:002022-02-07T12:18:45.018-08:00A group of major cryptocurrency firms including Coinbase, Circle, Anchorage Digital and Huobi Global are forming a new coalition aimed at cracking down on market manipulation in an effort to instill trust in the burgeoning digital asset industry. From a report: The Crypto Market Integrity Coalition, which was convened by risk-monitoring software company Solidus Labs, is also urging digital currency companies to sign a market integrity pledge that acknowledges the potential for fraud in the cryptocurrency space and the need for the industry to protect investors. "It really is about recognizing that you need entities that are focused on a fair and orderly system here, and really trying to prevent the abuses that can happen if you're not paying attention," said Kathy Kraninger, vice president of regulatory affairs at Solidus Labs and former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The new alliance and pledge comes as regulators remain concerned the new market is safe for investors, despite its surge in popularity. The Securities and Exchange Commission has cited the potential for market manipulation as one of the primary reasons for rejecting several applications for spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds. <div class="share_submission" style="position:relative;"><a class="slashpop" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Crypto+Firms+Launch+Coalition+To+Promote+Market+Integrity%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F3rxXntp"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png" /></a> <a class="slashpop" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftech.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F22%2F02%2F07%2F209203%2Fcrypto-firms-launch-coalition-to-promote-market-integrity%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png" /></a></div> <p><a href="https://tech.slashdot.org/story/22/02/07/209203/crypto-firms-launch-coalition-to-promote-market-integrity?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&amp;utm_medium=feed">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <iframe src="https://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discuss&amp;id=20750287&amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"></iframe><br /> <br /> from Slashdot https://ift.tt/Or9TazA<br /> via <a href="https://ifttt.com/?ref=da&amp;site=blogger">IFTTT</a> mshakeelsahilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10872964509307176630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115924232228574301.post-84150773851127708792022-02-07T12:18:00.001-08:002022-02-07T12:18:43.823-08:00Mike Masnick, reporting for TechDirt: Over a decade ago, we wrote about how Google had to edit out the Australian Aboriginal flag from a logo because of copyright concerns. An 11-year-old girl had won a contest to design a Google logo for Australia Day, and her logo included a simple drawing of the popular Aboriginal flag. Harold Thomas created a (fairly simple) flag design "as a symbol of unity and national identity" for the Aboriginal people in Australia. The flag became quite popular... and then Thomas basically became a copyright landlord, demanding payment for pretty much any usage. In 2019, Thomas did a big licensing deal with a clothing company and proceeded to send out a bunch of cease-and-desist letters to others. It got so bad that the Australian Senate sought to have the government figure out a way to make sure the public could use the flag. Apparently it took over two years, but the "deal" has been worked out -- and it involves the Australian government paying over $20 million to basically buy out the copyright and the former licensing deals, but that still doesn't mean the flag is truly in the public domain: "Mr Thomas will retain moral rights over the flag, but has agreed to give up copyright in return for all future royalties the Commonwealth receives from commercial flag sales to be put towards the ongoing work of NAIDOC. A commercial company will keep its exclusive licence to be able to manufacture Aboriginal flags for commercial use, but the government said the company would not stop people from making their own flags for personal use." <div class="share_submission" style="position:relative;"><a class="slashpop" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Australia+Pays+%2420+Million+To+Buy+The+Copyright+Of+Aboriginal+Flag%2C+But+It's+Still+Not+Public+Domain%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F3rxsS6H"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png" /></a> <a class="slashpop" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fslashdot.org%2Fstory%2F22%2F02%2F07%2F1920257%2Faustralia-pays-20-million-to-buy-the-copyright-of-aboriginal-flag-but-its-still-not-public-domain%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png" /></a></div> <p><a href="https://slashdot.org/story/22/02/07/1920257/australia-pays-20-million-to-buy-the-copyright-of-aboriginal-flag-but-its-still-not-public-domain?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&amp;utm_medium=feed">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <iframe src="https://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discuss&amp;id=20750177&amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"></iframe><br /> <br /> from Slashdot https://ift.tt/ufcmvMi<br /> via <a href="https://ifttt.com/?ref=da&amp;site=blogger">IFTTT</a> mshakeelsahilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10872964509307176630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115924232228574301.post-38023575050636952532022-02-07T11:34:00.001-08:002022-02-07T11:34:51.686-08:00<img src='https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2022/02/07/gettyimages-927293856_wide-24b3f879526092a2527ba977a634e962b4b5dd3e.jpg?s=600' alt='Composer Jonny Greenwood arrives for the Academy Awards on March 4, 2018, in Hollywood, Calif. Greenwood was nominated for an Oscar his work on Phantom Thread.' /> <p>Greenwood says writing the music for <em>The Power of the Dog</em> allowed him to experiment by mixing a banjo and a string quartet. He also recently scored <em>Spencer</em> and <em>Licorice Pizza.</em></p> <p>(Image credit: Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty Images)</p> <img src='https://media.npr.org/include/images/tracking/npr-rss-pixel.png?story=1078802881' /><br /> <br /> from Culture : NPR https://ift.tt/ID4Sxur<br /> via <a href="https://ifttt.com/?ref=da&amp;site=blogger">IFTTT</a> mshakeelsahilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10872964509307176630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115924232228574301.post-60513991736478356102022-02-07T11:19:00.001-08:002022-02-07T11:19:08.978-08:00magzteel shares a report: For almost five years, an international consortium of scientists was chasing clouds, determined to solve a problem that bedeviled climate-change forecasts for a generation: How do these wisps of water vapor affect global warming? They reworked 2.1 million lines of supercomputer code used to explore the future of climate change, adding more-intricate equations for clouds and hundreds of other improvements. They tested the equations, debugged them and tested again. The scientists would find that even the best tools at hand can't model climates with the sureness the world needs as rising temperatures impact almost every region. When they ran the updated simulation in 2018, the conclusion jolted them: Earth's atmosphere was much more sensitive to greenhouse gases than decades of previous models had predicted, and future temperatures could be much higher than feared -- perhaps even beyond hope of practical remedy. "We thought this was really strange," said Gokhan Danabasoglu, chief scientist for the climate-model project at the Mesa Laboratory in Boulder at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, or NCAR. "If that number was correct, that was really bad news." At least 20 older, simpler global-climate models disagreed with the new one at NCAR, an open-source model called the Community Earth System Model 2, or CESM2, funded mainly by the U.S. National Science Foundation and arguably the worldâ(TM)s most influential climate program. Then, one by one, a dozen climate-modeling groups around the world produced similar forecasts. "It was not just us," Dr. Danabasoglu said. The scientists soon concluded their new calculations had been thrown off kilter by the physics of clouds in a warming world, which may amplify or damp climate change. "The old way is just wrong, we know that," said Andrew Gettelman, a physicist at NCAR who specializes in clouds and helped develop the CESM2 model. "I think our higher sensitivity is wrong too. It's probably a consequence of other things we did by making clouds better and more realistic. You solve one problem and create another." Since then the CESM2 scientists have been reworking their climate-change algorithms using a deluge of new information about the effects of rising temperatures to better understand the physics at work. They have abandoned their most extreme calculations of climate sensitivity, but their more recent projections of future global warming are still dire -- and still in flux. As world leaders consider how to limit greenhouse gases, they depend heavily on what computer climate models predict. But as algorithms and the computer they run on become more powerful -- able to crunch far more data and do better simulations -- that very complexity has left climate scientists grappling with mismatches among competing computer models. <div class="share_submission" style="position:relative;"><a class="slashpop" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Climate+Scientists+Encounter+Limits+of+Computer+Models%2C+Bedeviling+Policy%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F3ovNTwM"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png" /></a> <a class="slashpop" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftech.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F22%2F02%2F07%2F1843227%2Fclimate-scientists-encounter-limits-of-computer-models-bedeviling-policy%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png" /></a></div> <p><a href="https://tech.slashdot.org/story/22/02/07/1843227/climate-scientists-encounter-limits-of-computer-models-bedeviling-policy?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&amp;utm_medium=feed">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <iframe src="https://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discuss&amp;id=20750069&amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"></iframe><br /> <br /> from Slashdot https://ift.tt/fBm9dgV<br /> via <a href="https://ifttt.com/?ref=da&amp;site=blogger">IFTTT</a> mshakeelsahilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10872964509307176630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115924232228574301.post-80833362549604822342022-02-07T10:19:00.003-08:002022-02-07T10:19:49.900-08:00Nintendo's latest financial report to investors, issued as an overview of its fiscal year's third quarter, came with a momentous announcement for the veteran video game and console producer: Switch has joined the 100 million-worldwide-sales club. From a report: What's more, Switch's current tally of 103.5 million means the device has leapfrogged over both the PlayStation 1 and Nintendo Wii in terms of sales. The count makes the Switch Nintendo's highest-selling home console of all time. While Sony's PS4 and PS2 console families continue to hold higher sales counts, neither got to the 100 million mark as quickly as Switch, which only needed 57 months to do so (March 2017 to December 2021). The only console family to get to the 100 million-global-sales mark faster is Nintendo's own portable DS platform, which needed only 51 months. The DS, which came out in 2004, launched at a lower $149 price point and went lower from there, while Switch has never sold for less than $199. In a statement to investors, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa affirmed that the Switch console, as it nears its fifth anniversary, is "in the middle of its lifecycle." Furukawa said nearly the exact same thing a few months earlier when Switch crossed the 90 million-sales mark. <div class="share_submission" style="position:relative;"><a class="slashpop" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=100+Million+and+Counting%3A+Nintendo+Affirms+that+Switch+is+Still+Mid-cycle%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F3Gxrg1g"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png" /></a> <a class="slashpop" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fgames.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F22%2F02%2F07%2F1722203%2F100-million-and-counting-nintendo-affirms-that-switch-is-still-mid-cycle%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png" /></a></div> <p><a href="https://games.slashdot.org/story/22/02/07/1722203/100-million-and-counting-nintendo-affirms-that-switch-is-still-mid-cycle?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&amp;utm_medium=feed">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <iframe src="https://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discuss&amp;id=20749777&amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"></iframe><br /> <br /> from Slashdot https://ift.tt/hU2jwQP<br /> via <a href="https://ifttt.com/?ref=da&amp;site=blogger">IFTTT</a> mshakeelsahilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10872964509307176630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115924232228574301.post-70595316559335157722022-02-07T10:19:00.001-08:002022-02-07T10:19:49.266-08:00Google has launched today a new security feature for Google Cloud tenants that is meant to detect and block cryptomining operations that may be taking place behind the owners' backs. From a report: Named Virtual Machine Threat Detection (VMTD), Google said this new feature is an agentless system that continually scans the memory of virtual machines deployed in Google Cloud environments for tell-tale signs of increased CPU or GPU usage -- specific to cryptomining operations. To avoid false-positive detections, the feature has been left disabled by default; however, any customer can enable it for their GCP VMs. They can do this by going to the Settings page of their Security Command Center and looking under the Manage Settings section. Google said the feature will only work with non-sensitive memory, and VMTD will not process memory from nodes marked as "Confidential." VMTD has begun rolling out today for public preview, so tenants are recommended to enable it for smaller portions of their nodes and keep a close eye on its impact on performance. <div class="share_submission" style="position:relative;"><a class="slashpop" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Google+Cloud+Adds+New+Cryptomining+Threat+Detection+Capability%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F3srFNqh"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png" /></a> <a class="slashpop" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftech.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F22%2F02%2F07%2F1716217%2Fgoogle-cloud-adds-new-cryptomining-threat-detection-capability%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png" /></a></div> <p><a href="https://tech.slashdot.org/story/22/02/07/1716217/google-cloud-adds-new-cryptomining-threat-detection-capability?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&amp;utm_medium=feed">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <iframe src="https://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discuss&amp;id=20749751&amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"></iframe><br /> <br /> from Slashdot https://ift.tt/7mh1rBs<br /> via <a href="https://ifttt.com/?ref=da&amp;site=blogger">IFTTT</a> mshakeelsahilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10872964509307176630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115924232228574301.post-78369379170123187332022-02-06T16:18:00.001-08:002022-02-06T16:18:46.335-08:00"Facebook is threatening it will simply pull out of Europe altogether if it is no longer able to share data about European users with its U.S. operations, applications, and data centres," reports ITWire. It's customary for regulatory filings to preemptively declare a wide variety of possible future hazards, and in that spirit a recently-filed Meta financial statement cites a ruling by the EU's Court of Justice (in July of 2020) voiding a U.S. law called the Privacy Shield (which Meta calls one legal basis for its current dara-transferring practices). Though courts are now determining the ruling's ramifications, ITWire notes that "with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) well in force, the U.S. Privacy Shield principles were found non-compliant and consequently invalid." So while that ruling affects every American company, including cloud companies like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, it's Facebook/Meta that "says stopping transatlantic data transfers will have a devastating impact on its targeted online advertisements capabilities." Read it yourself, in Meta's own words: "If a new transatlantic data transfer framework is not adopted and we are unable to continue to rely on Standard Contractual Clauses [now also subject to new judical scrutiny] or rely upon other alternative means of data transfers from Europe to the United States, we will likely be unable to offer a number of our most significant products and services, including Facebook and Instagram, in Europe, which would materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations." Of course, the filing also cites other hazards like the possibility of new legislation restricting Facebook's ability to collect data about minors, complaining that such legislation "may also result in limitations on our advertising services or our ability to offer products and services to minors in certain jurisdictions." And in addition, "We are, and expect to continue to be, the subject of investigations, inquiries, data requests, requests for information, actions, and audits by government authorities and regulators in the United States, Europe, and around the world, particularly in the areas of privacy, data protection, law enforcement, consumer protection, civil rights, content moderation, and competition..." "Orders issued by, or inquiries or enforcement actions initiated by, government or regulatory authorities could cause us to incur substantial costs, expose us to unanticipated civil and criminal liability or penalties (including substantial monetary remedies), interrupt or require us to change our business practices in a manner materially adverse to our business, result in negative publicity and reputational harm, divert resources and the time and attention of management from our business, or subject us to other structural or behavioral remedies that adversely affect our business." (Thanks to Slashdot reader juul_advocate for sharing the story!) <div class="share_submission" style="position:relative;"><a class="slashpop" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Meta+Threatens+To+Pull+Facebook+and+Instagram+From+Europe+If+It+Can't+Target+Ads%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F3gqqet1"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png" /></a> <a class="slashpop" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftech.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F22%2F02%2F06%2F2313240%2Fmeta-threatens-to-pull-facebook-and-instagram-from-europe-if-it-cant-target-ads%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png" /></a></div> <p><a href="https://tech.slashdot.org/story/22/02/06/2313240/meta-threatens-to-pull-facebook-and-instagram-from-europe-if-it-cant-target-ads?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&amp;utm_medium=feed">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <iframe src="https://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discuss&amp;id=20743389&amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"></iframe><br /> <br /> from Slashdot https://ift.tt/u7e6xBO<br /> via <a href="https://ifttt.com/?ref=da&amp;site=blogger">IFTTT</a> mshakeelsahilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10872964509307176630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115924232228574301.post-63961645606345564652022-02-06T15:18:00.001-08:002022-02-06T15:18:30.956-08:00NBC News tells the story of Rich, a Coca-Cola delivery driver who didn't get a paycheck at Christmas because of a ransomware attack on the payroll company serving Coke's largest distributor. But then "more than a month after hackers crippled Kronos," paychecks to its employees in Indiana, Ohio and West Virginia "have been sporadic, according to union representatives." Rich, who asked not to be identified by his last name for fear of retaliation from his employer, is among hundreds of workers who deliver Coke products in at least three states who say they're still owed wages — fallout from one of the many ransomware attacks that hit U.S. companies practically every day. Rich, a father of three, said he's had to dip into his savings, which have dwindled down in recent weeks. "They went from $1,100, $1,200 a week to $300, $600," he said of his paychecks. "I got one $300 paycheck, and I called and told them exactly what I needed paid, and they sent me a $46 check...." "We've got 130 people and they've all got problems," said Max Zemla, the president of the Cleveland-area Teamsters Local 293. "Some are telling me they're not as bad off. I have a guy who's off a thousand dollars. Uses his money for his kid's tuition for school, and he's not able to pay it...." "The timekeeping vendor Kronos that suffered the attack is in the process of coming back online," [said Josh Gelinas, Coca-Cola Consolidated's vice president of communications February 1st] in an emailed statement. "But, until these digital systems are fully restored, we must continue manually recording work hours for thousands of our teammates. This process is taking longer than we would like and may have resulted in some inconsistencies, but our teammates will be paid for every hour they've worked...." [NBC reports that a spokesperson for Kronos "noted that the company announced on Jan. 22 that it had finally restored all its services."] Jeff Combs, the secretary treasurer of Teamsters Local 135 in Indianapolis, said the vast majority of the roughly 200 Coca-Cola Consolidated employees he represents are still owed pay. "Some are still owed as high as $4,700," Combs said. Rich complains to NBC News that "now my savings have dwindled down because a billion-dollar company can't give you an average paycheck." But it shows ransomware's effects ultimately reach farther than we realize. "It's often assumed that ransomware mainly affects governments and major corporations because it's those incidents that make the news," a ransomware analyst at Emsisoft tells NBC News. "The reality, however, is that more than half of all ransomware victims are small businesses and individuals. And, unfortunately, they are usually not as well prepared to deal with the problem as larger organizations and probably feel more pain as a result." <div class="share_submission" style="position:relative;"><a class="slashpop" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=A+Month+After+Ransomware+Attack%2C+Hundreds+of+Workers+Are+Still+Owed+Pay%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F3B9DuvN"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png" /></a> <a class="slashpop" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fit.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F22%2F02%2F06%2F2130233%2Fa-month-after-ransomware-attack-hundreds-of-workers-are-still-owed-pay%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png" /></a></div> <p><a href="https://it.slashdot.org/story/22/02/06/2130233/a-month-after-ransomware-attack-hundreds-of-workers-are-still-owed-pay?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&amp;utm_medium=feed">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <iframe src="https://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discuss&amp;id=20743197&amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"></iframe><br /> <br /> from Slashdot https://ift.tt/cI7XbHu<br /> via <a href="https://ifttt.com/?ref=da&amp;site=blogger">IFTTT</a> mshakeelsahilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10872964509307176630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115924232228574301.post-24335931266242759342022-02-06T14:18:00.001-08:002022-02-06T14:18:54.565-08:00The Washington Post's editorial board announces its position in "The Post's view," a section of its site which officially "represent the views of The Washington Post as an institution, as determined through debate among members of the Editorial Board." Its newest position? America's Internal Revenue Service "should not make you scan your face to see your tax returns." The Internal Revenue Service might soon force every American who wants to access their taxes online to record a selfie of themselves and submit to facial recognition to verify their identity. The IRS wants to start this extra verification procedure this summer. That would be a mistake. This cannot be the only way to access an account online, as 90 percent of tax filers currently do. Requiring facial recognition could prevent a substantial number of people from accessing their accounts. Low-income Americans often lack the necessary technology, and research shows people of color are more likely to be misidentified. There are equally serious concerns about privacy and what will happen to the potentially more than 100 million selfies the IRS will collect. Cutting down on fraud is a worthy goal, but facial recognition should not be introduced so swiftly without clear guardrails around the data.... [T]here is no federal law regulating how this sensitive information can be used. And let's not forget that hackers exposed the personal information of more than 140 million Americans when they broke into Equifax — itself once an IRS verification company.... There have been encouraging reports that the IRS is reconsidering its sole reliance on ID.me for online verification for website access. At a minimum, the IRS must offer other verification options and clearly articulate guidelines on what happens to all facial data. <div class="share_submission" style="position:relative;"><a class="slashpop" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Washington+Post+Editors%3A++America's+IRS+Shouldn't+Make+You+Scan+Your+Face%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F3skLV3x"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png" /></a> <a class="slashpop" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F22%2F02%2F06%2F2044224%2Fwashington-post-editors-americas-irs-shouldnt-make-you-scan-your-face%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png" /></a></div> <p><a href="https://news.slashdot.org/story/22/02/06/2044224/washington-post-editors-americas-irs-shouldnt-make-you-scan-your-face?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&amp;utm_medium=feed">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <iframe src="https://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discuss&amp;id=20743137&amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"></iframe><br /> <br /> from Slashdot https://ift.tt/hHbl0kR<br /> via <a href="https://ifttt.com/?ref=da&amp;site=blogger">IFTTT</a> mshakeelsahilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10872964509307176630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115924232228574301.post-6022948103818929692022-02-06T13:18:00.001-08:002022-02-06T13:18:17.859-08:00Rockstar Games recently acknowledged the "unprecedented longevity" of Grand Theft Auto V (and its online component Grand Theft Auto Online) — and confirmed their working on the next new game for the series. But Forbes argues "The success of GTA Online itself may end up fundamentally changing the way Rockstar makes this series going forward..." The success of Grand Theft Auto 5 has been both a blessing and a curse. A blessing for Rockstar, making zillions from the success of GTA Online, and for those deeply invested in that world which has continually gotten new expansions and additions. But a curse for those waiting for GTA 6, as Rockstar is now about to release GTA 5 across three different generations, cementing its massive lead as the best-selling game in history, endlessly delaying a true sequel. Now, however, Rockstar has finally stated the obvious, they are working on the next GTA game, which we're all calling GTA 6, but Rockstar stops short of saying number that outright.... I don't know if we can say for sure if this is going to be GTA 6 specifically, either the name or the concept.... I can imagine a "new entry in the Grand Theft Auto series" being a massive game that is perhaps online from the start, including for its base campaign. And not to use the "m" word, but there are less compelling metaverses than what GTA Online has become, and Rockstar may want to lean into that even further to try to get ahead of competition trying to make their own virtual worlds. As such, I could see a future that blends a traditional numbered GTA sequel and GTA Online, and who knows what that would be called ("GTA World?" "GTA Infinite?"). Just saying, it may not be "GTA 6," exactly. <div class="share_submission" style="position:relative;"><a class="slashpop" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=GTA+Metaverse%3F++Rockstar+Confirms+'GTA+6'+Is+In+Active+Production%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F3Li26HA"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png" /></a> <a class="slashpop" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fgames.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F22%2F02%2F06%2F2017227%2Fgta-metaverse-rockstar-confirms-gta-6-is-in-active-production%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png" /></a></div> <p><a href="https://games.slashdot.org/story/22/02/06/2017227/gta-metaverse-rockstar-confirms-gta-6-is-in-active-production?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&amp;utm_medium=feed">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <iframe src="https://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discuss&amp;id=20743093&amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"></iframe><br /> <br /> from Slashdot https://ift.tt/R5ajvlc<br /> via <a href="https://ifttt.com/?ref=da&amp;site=blogger">IFTTT</a> mshakeelsahilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10872964509307176630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115924232228574301.post-45973801527699783382022-02-06T11:18:00.001-08:002022-02-06T11:18:43.338-08:00Apple's privacy push could cost Meta $10 billion in lost 2022 advertising revenue — and that news alone erased $250 billion in Meta's value, notes long-time Slashdot reader theodp. But this leads them to a thought experiment: What would happen to Meta's and Google's business models if the privacy invasion behind the companies' lucrative advertising model were actually criminalized? While there would likely still be the same massive demand for the free services provided by Meta and Google, being unable to target customers of interest to advertisers based on snooped behaviors and demographics seems likely to throw the duopoly's lucrative cost-per-click (CPC) and cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) advertising model that powers these free services into disarray. So what might the end game look like for Facebook and Google in a Web world where privacy was enforced by law? One imagines the pair could try to incur the additional cost of delivering many times more untargeted impressions in an effort to reach the same number of behavior and demographic-targeted impressions desired by advertisers, assuming they could get that to work and gain advertisers' trust in the new model. But one wonders if advertisers might start diverting more ad dollars away from Meta and Google to other sources such as media providers, whose varied content naturally segments audiences and could deliver greater assurance to advertisers that more relevant viewers are being reached. Might Meta and Google pivot to become syndicators of media content and be forced to share more of the advertising loot? And what about the Metaverse — could Meta-sponsored events and interest groups hosted there provide Meta with opportunities to naturally segment its massive user base into areas that could facilitate targeting audiences relevant to advertisers even without privacy invasion? Finally — if worse comes to worst — would users actually pay to use Meta's and Google's services if the new advertising model failed to deliver sufficient revenue to keep services free? <div class="share_submission" style="position:relative;"><a class="slashpop" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=What+Would+Happens+To+Meta+and+Google+If+Privacy+Invasion+Were+Criminalized%3F%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F3JbWw7H"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png" /></a> <a class="slashpop" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftech.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F22%2F02%2F06%2F0228218%2Fwhat-would-happens-to-meta-and-google-if-privacy-invasion-were-criminalized%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png" /></a></div> <p><a href="https://tech.slashdot.org/story/22/02/06/0228218/what-would-happens-to-meta-and-google-if-privacy-invasion-were-criminalized?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&amp;utm_medium=feed">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <iframe src="https://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discuss&amp;id=20740485&amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"></iframe><br /> <br /> from Slashdot https://ift.tt/7PYybvF<br /> via <a href="https://ifttt.com/?ref=da&amp;site=blogger">IFTTT</a> mshakeelsahilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10872964509307176630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115924232228574301.post-61175223784746323352022-02-06T10:18:00.001-08:002022-02-06T10:18:55.714-08:00"Old songs now represent 70 percent of the U.S. music market, according to the latest numbers from MRC Data, a music-analytics firm." So writes Ted Gioia, author of the Substack music/pop culture newsletter "The Honest Broker". But it gets worse: "The new-music market is actually shrinking. All the growth in the market is coming from old songs. The 200 most popular new tracks now regularly account for less than 5 percent of total streams. That rate was twice as high just three years ago....." The signs are everywhere — including the fact that viewership for the music industry's Grammy awards plummeted 53% this year to just 8.8 million. "More people pay attention to streams of video games on Twitch (which now gets 30 million daily visitors)." And even then, "When a new song overcomes these obstacles and actually becomes a hit, the risk of copyright lawsuits is greater than ever before.... Adding to the nightmare, dead musicians are now coming back to life in virtual form — via holograms and 'deepfake' music — making it all the harder for young, living artists to compete in the marketplace." But in the end the real problem may ultimately be that "nothing is less interesting to music executives than a completely radical new kind of music." Who can blame them for feeling this way? The radio stations will play only songs that fit the dominant formulas, which haven't changed much in decades. The algorithms curating so much of our new music are even worse. Music algorithms are designed to be feedback loops, ensuring that the promoted new songs are virtually identical to your favorite old songs. Anything that genuinely breaks the mold is excluded from consideration almost as a rule. That's actually how the current system has been designed to work. Even the music genres famous for shaking up the world — rock or jazz or hip-hop — face this same deadening industry mindset. I love jazz, but many of the radio stations focused on that genre play songs that sound almost the same as what they featured 10 or 20 years ago. In many instances, they actually are the same songs. This state of affairs is not inevitable. A lot of musicians around the world — especially in Los Angeles and London — are conducting a bold dialogue between jazz and other contemporary styles. They are even bringing jazz back as dance music. But the songs they release sound dangerously different from older jazz, and are thus excluded from many radio stations for that same reason. The very boldness with which they embrace the future becomes the reason they get rejected by the gatekeepers. A country record needs to sound a certain way to get played on most country radio stations or playlists, and the sound those DJs and algorithms are looking for dates back to the prior century. And don't even get me started on the classical-music industry, which works hard to avoid showcasing the creativity of the current generation. We are living in an amazing era of classical composition, with one tiny problem: The institutions controlling the genre don't want you to hear it. The problem isn't a lack of good new music. It's an institutional failure to discover and nurture it. So while the author acknowledges that "The fear of copyright lawsuits has made many in the industry deathly afraid of listening to unsolicited demo recordings," far deeper than that is the problem that, "The people running the music industry have lost confidence in new music." Yet if there's any hope, the author argues, it's that people "crave something that sounds fresh and exciting and different.... Songs can go viral nowadays without the entertainment industry even noticing until it has already happened. That will be how this story ends: not with the marginalization of new music, but with something radical emerging from an unexpected place...." "The CEOs are the last to know. That's what gives me solace.... The decision makers controlling our music institutions have lost the thread. We're lucky that the music is too powerful for them to kill." <div class="share_submission" style="position:relative;"><a class="slashpop" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Algorithms%2C+Copyrights%2C+or+Clueless+Industry+Executives%3A++What's+Killing+New+Music%3F%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F3HvKo0P"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png" /></a> <a class="slashpop" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fentertainment.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F22%2F02%2F06%2F1730225%2Falgorithms-copyrights-or-clueless-industry-executives-whats-killing-new-music%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png" /></a></div> <p><a href="https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/22/02/06/1730225/algorithms-copyrights-or-clueless-industry-executives-whats-killing-new-music?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&amp;utm_medium=feed">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <iframe src="https://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discuss&amp;id=20742771&amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"></iframe><br /> <br /> from Slashdot https://ift.tt/ZR49feX<br /> via <a href="https://ifttt.com/?ref=da&amp;site=blogger">IFTTT</a> mshakeelsahilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10872964509307176630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115924232228574301.post-33736027039557943032022-02-06T09:19:00.001-08:002022-02-06T09:19:00.264-08:00A California newspaper covers "pleas" to the state's governor to delay the closure of a nuclear power plant: On Thursday, Dr. Steven Chu, former U.S. Secretary of Energy under the Obama administration and a Nobel laureate, and more than 79 scientists, academics and entrepreneurs sent a letter to [California governor] Newsom urging him to find a way to keep the plant open because of the necessary carbon-free, clean electricity it provides to the state's electricity grid. Diablo Canyon currently provides about 18,000 gigawatt-hours of clean electricity annually, comprising of about 10% of the state's electricity portfolio.... The letter was sent by the nonprofit foundation Save Clean Energy, which was organized primarily to protest the closure of the nuclear power plant.... The letter details how Diablo Canyon is critical to the state's clean energy goals, which the state is legally mandated to meet, and how it seems unlikely the state will be able to meet those goals with the plant's current scheduled decommissioning beginning in November 2024, when the first of its two Nuclear Regulatory Licenses expires.... The movement to keep Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant open has recently gained new traction after a Stanford and Massachusetts Institute of Technology report released in November claimed operating the plant for 10 years beyond its expected closure would significantly help the state meet its clean energy goals. In a statement sent to The Tribune in December, a spokesperson for Newsom indicated the governor has no intention of delaying the closure of Diablo Canyon. "California has the technology to achieve California's clean energy goals without compromising our energy needs. The pathway is through diverse renewable energy sources, expanded energy storage and grid climate resiliency," Newsom spokesperson Erin Mellon wrote in an email to The Tribune. "Our retail energy providers are already in the process of procuring new energy projects to replace the energy produced by Diablo Canyon." Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader gordm for sharing the link <div class="share_submission" style="position:relative;"><a class="slashpop" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Keep+Nuclear+Power+Plant+Open%2C+Urge+79+Scientists%2C+Academics+and+Entrepreneurs%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F3GxgI27"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png" /></a> <a class="slashpop" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fhardware.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F22%2F02%2F05%2F2342219%2Fkeep-nuclear-power-plant-open-urge-79-scientists-academics-and-entrepreneurs%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png" /></a></div> <p><a href="https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/22/02/05/2342219/keep-nuclear-power-plant-open-urge-79-scientists-academics-and-entrepreneurs?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&amp;utm_medium=feed">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <iframe src="https://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discuss&amp;id=20740123&amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"></iframe><br /> <br /> from Slashdot https://ift.tt/XmnTHYG<br /> via <a href="https://ifttt.com/?ref=da&amp;site=blogger">IFTTT</a> mshakeelsahilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10872964509307176630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115924232228574301.post-12320571041738914262022-02-05T14:18:00.001-08:002022-02-05T14:18:28.233-08:00Ars Technica recently pointed out that the concept of downvoting posts and comments "has been a staple of the Internet for decades, appearing on sites such as Slashdot, Reddit, and Ars Technica." And Twitter is now experimenting with its own version, according to the International Business Times: After initially announcing the launch of a "downvoting" feature in July, Twitter revealed on Wednesday that it would be taking the feature to the global testing stage, even as questions remain about whether a more positive or negative environment is fostered on the platform as a result. The company announced that the "downvotes" will expand to more people on iOS and Android devices, and reiterated that the votes are not public, but can help the company determine what type of content different people actually wish to see. "We learned a lot about the types of replies you don't find relevant and we're expanding this test — more of you on web and soon iOS and Android will have the option to use reply downvoting. "Downvotes aren't public, but they'll help inform us of the content people want to see...". Twitter has not yet announced when the "downvote" feature will be rolled out to all users, or if it ever will be. While the test should help the company figure out if the downvote option promotes a more hateful environment or fosters a better experience, their final decision is yet to be revealed. The Washington Post includes a screenshot of the downvoting button, describing it as a small arrow to the right of the like button. <div class="share_submission" style="position:relative;"><a class="slashpop" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Twitter+Announces+It+Will+Expand+(Non-Public)+Downvoting%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F3J4oVfD"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png" /></a> <a class="slashpop" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fslashdot.org%2Fstory%2F22%2F02%2F05%2F058246%2Ftwitter-announces-it-will-expand-non-public-downvoting%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png" /></a></div> <p><a href="https://slashdot.org/story/22/02/05/058246/twitter-announces-it-will-expand-non-public-downvoting?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&amp;utm_medium=feed">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <iframe src="https://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discuss&amp;id=20736021&amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"></iframe><br /> <br /> from Slashdot https://ift.tt/sSpCWgZ<br /> via <a href="https://ifttt.com/?ref=da&amp;site=blogger">IFTTT</a> mshakeelsahilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10872964509307176630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115924232228574301.post-74040845156766267202022-02-05T13:18:00.001-08:002022-02-05T13:18:23.322-08:00The Associated Press reports: News Corp., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, said Friday that it had been hacked and had data stolen from journalists and other employees, and a cybersecurity firm investigating the intrusion said Chinese intelligence-gathering was believed behind the operation. The Journal, citing people briefed on the intrusion, reported that it appeared to date back to February 2020 and that scores of employees were impacted. It quoted them as saying the hackers were able to access reporters' emails and Google Docs, including drafts of articles. News Corp., whose publications and businesses include the New York Post and Journal parent Dow Jones, said it discovered the breach on Jan. 20. It said customer and financial data were so far not affected and company operations were not interrupted. But the potential impact on news reporting and sources was a serious concern. News organizations are prime targets for the world's intelligence agencies because their reporters are in constant contact with sources of sensitive information. Journalists and newsrooms from Mexico and El Salvador to Qatar, where Al-Jazeera is based, have been hacked with powerful spyware. Mandiant, the cybersecurity firm examining the hack, said in a statement that it "assesses that those behind this activity have a China nexus, and we believe they are likely involved in espionage activities to collect intelligence to benefit China's interests...." FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a speech this week that the bureau opens investigations tied to suspected Chinese espionage operations about every 12 hours, and has more than 2,000 such probes. He said Chinese government hackers have been pilfering more personal and corporate data than all other countries combined. While state-backed Russian hacking tends to get more headlines, U.S. officials say China has been stealthily stealing far more valuable commercial and personal data over the past few decades as digital technology took hold. CBS News reports that "preliminary findings point to a supply chain hack," since News Corp wrote in its report that they'd discovered one of the third-party providers supporting their technology and "cloud-based" systems "was the target of persistent cyberattack activity." The Associated Press adds that major newsrooms have also been compromised previously, including a 2013 cyberespionage attack against the New York Times in 2013. A former information security executive at the paper explaining "that while major newsrooms have shown a lot of progress in the last few years in helping their journalists navigate an increasingly hostile digital world, those efforts are not adequate to defend against a skilled and determined adversary like China." <div class="share_submission" style="position:relative;"><a class="slashpop" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Major+US+News+Publisher+Breached%2C+Chinese+Supply-Chain+Attack+Suspected%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F3uqZeC7"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png" /></a> <a class="slashpop" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F22%2F02%2F05%2F2035236%2Fmajor-us-news-publisher-breached-chinese-supply-chain-attack-suspected%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png" /></a></div> <p><a href="https://news.slashdot.org/story/22/02/05/2035236/major-us-news-publisher-breached-chinese-supply-chain-attack-suspected?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&amp;utm_medium=feed">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <iframe src="https://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discuss&amp;id=20739873&amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"></iframe><br /> <br /> from Slashdot https://ift.tt/b0lkLoY<br /> via <a href="https://ifttt.com/?ref=da&amp;site=blogger">IFTTT</a> mshakeelsahilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10872964509307176630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115924232228574301.post-2302948726385409252022-02-05T12:18:00.001-08:002022-02-05T12:18:40.496-08:00Meta's stock plunged 26% Thursday — its biggest one-day drop ever, lowering its marketing valuation by more than $230 billion. And then on Friday it dropped just a little bit more. A New York Times technology correspondent offers six reasons Meta is in trouble: User growth has hit a ceiling. The salad days of Facebook's wild user growth are over. Even though the company on Wednesday recorded modest gains in new users across its so-called family of apps — which includes Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp — its core Facebook social networking app lost about half a million users over the fourth quarter from the previous quarter. That's the first such decline for the company in its 18-year history, during which time it had practically been defined by its ability to bring in more new users. The dip signaled that the core app may have reached its peak. Meta's quarterly user growth rate was also the slowest it has been in at least three years. Meta's executives have pointed to other growth opportunities, like turning on the money faucet at WhatsApp, the messaging service that has yet to generate substantial revenue. But those efforts are nascent. Investors are likely to next scrutinize whether Meta's other apps, such as Instagram, might begin to hit their top on user growth.... Apple's changes are limiting Meta and Google is stealing online advertising share. Last spring, Apple introduced an "App Tracking Transparency" update to its mobile operating system, essentially giving iPhone owners the choice as to whether they would let apps like Facebook monitor their online activities. Those privacy moves have now hurt Meta's business and are likely to continue doing so... On Wednesday, David Wehner, Meta's chief financial officer, noted that as Apple's changes have given advertisers less visibility into user behaviors, many have started shifting their ad budgets to other platforms. Namely Google. In Google's earnings call this week, the company reported record sales, particularly in its e-commerce search advertising. That was the very same category that tripped up Meta in the last three months of 2021. Unlike Meta, Google is not heavily dependent on Apple for user data. Mr. Wehner said it was likely that Google had "far more third-party data for measurement and optimization purposes" than Meta's ad platform. Mr. Wehner also pointed to Google's deal with Apple to be the default search engine for Apple's Safari browser. That means Google's search ads tend to appear in more places, taking in more data that can be useful for advertisers. That's a huge problem for Meta in the long term, especially if more advertisers switch to Google search ads. Meta's other problems include competition from TikTok (and the problems with monetizing "Reels," Meta's own TikTok clone on Instagram), as well as pending antitrust investigations (and the way it hampers future social media acquisitions). But with Meta expected to continue spending more than $10 billion a year on virtual reality, "still the province of niche hobbyists [that] has yet to really break into the mainstream," the article also suggests its final reason for why Meta is in trouble: that "Spending on the metaverse is bonkers." <div class="share_submission" style="position:relative;"><a class="slashpop" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Six+Reasons+Meta+(Formerly+Facebook)+is+In+Trouble%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F3HwhZYu"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png" /></a> <a class="slashpop" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftech.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F22%2F02%2F05%2F0434219%2Fsix-reasons-meta-formerly-facebook-is-in-trouble%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png" /></a></div> <p><a href="https://tech.slashdot.org/story/22/02/05/0434219/six-reasons-meta-formerly-facebook-is-in-trouble?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&amp;utm_medium=feed">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <iframe src="https://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discuss&amp;id=20735905&amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"></iframe><br /> <br /> from Slashdot https://ift.tt/94iaUdM<br /> via <a href="https://ifttt.com/?ref=da&amp;site=blogger">IFTTT</a> mshakeelsahilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10872964509307176630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115924232228574301.post-1151601407445128242022-02-05T11:18:00.001-08:002022-02-05T11:18:20.753-08:00Scientific American reports: These are boom times for astronomers hunting black holes. The biggest ones — supermassive black holes that can weigh billions of suns — have been found at the centers of most every galaxy, and we have even managed to image one. Meanwhile, researchers now routinely detect gravitational waves rippling through the universe from smaller merging black holes. Closer to home, we have witnessed the dramatic celestial fireworks produced when the Milky Way's own supermassive black hole and its more diminutive cousins feed on gas clouds or even entire stars. Never before, though, have we seen a long-predicted phenomenon: an isolated black hole drifting aimlessly through space, born and flung out from the collapsing core of a massive star. Until now. Scientists have announced the first-ever unambiguous discovery of a free-floating black hole, a rogue wanderer in the void some 5,000 light-years from Earth. The result, which appeared January 31 on the arXiv preprint server but has not yet been peer-reviewed, represents the culmination of more than a decade of ardent searching. "It's super exciting," says Marina Rejkuba from the European Southern Observatory in Germany, a co-author on the paper. "We can actually prove that isolated black holes are there." This discovery may be just the start; ongoing surveys and upcoming missions are expected to find dozens or even hundreds more of the dark, lonely travelers. "It's the tip of the iceberg," says Kareem El-Badry from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who was not involved in the paper.... The odds of seeing such an event for an isolated black hole were slim, but given that millions of stellar-mass black holes are predicted to be drifting through our galaxy, some might turn up in sufficiently broad and deep surveys of the sky.... This black hole's mass offers further evidence that astrophysicists' formation models are correct — that solitary black holes can rise from the ashes of especially hefty stellar progenitors.... Rogue stellar-mass black holes, long predicted but only now observationally confirmed, might well be sufficiently common in our galaxy to support demographic studies of their population. Pinning down their true abundance, masses and other properties could shore up our still-incomplete theories of stellar evolution — or reveal important new gaps in our understanding. "If confirmed, this is a very exciting discovery!" adds the astronomy column at Syfy.com. "We know those black holes are out there, and this research points to how we can find them." The precise astrometry was partly performed using the Hubble Space Telescope over a six-year interval, according to the research paper (shared by Slashdot reader Obipale). <div class="share_submission" style="position:relative;"><a class="slashpop" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Astronomers+Find+First+Ever+Rogue+Black+Hole+Adrift+In+the+Milky+Way%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F3HyfNzD"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png" /></a> <a class="slashpop" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fscience.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F22%2F02%2F05%2F0334254%2Fastronomers-find-first-ever-rogue-black-hole-adrift-in-the-milky-way%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png" /></a></div> <p><a href="https://science.slashdot.org/story/22/02/05/0334254/astronomers-find-first-ever-rogue-black-hole-adrift-in-the-milky-way?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&amp;utm_medium=feed">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <iframe src="https://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discuss&amp;id=20735765&amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"></iframe><br /> <br /> from Slashdot https://ift.tt/TxiUfdq<br /> via <a href="https://ifttt.com/?ref=da&amp;site=blogger">IFTTT</a> mshakeelsahilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10872964509307176630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6115924232228574301.post-36118331434521523132022-02-05T10:18:00.001-08:002022-02-05T10:18:55.602-08:00From Mike Melanson's "This Week in Programming" column: The second beta of Go 1.18 was released this week, following up the first beta, which the team writes was "the most downloaded Go beta ever, with twice as many downloads as any previous release." With it comes support for generics in both gopls [the official Go language server] and Visual Studio Code's Go extension. In addition to the long-awaited generics feature, Go 1.18 introduces fuzzing and the new Go workspace mode. Having put the first beta through its paces, the team also writes that it "has also proved very reliable; in fact, we are already running it in production here at Google." Nonetheless, Beta 2 is here to make sure everything is good, as Beta 1 uncovered some "obscure bugs in the new support for generics". The release candidate is also expected later this month, with the final Go 1.18 release slated for March. And while we're talking about Go 1.18, Go AWK creator Ben Hoyt decided to take a look at Go performance from version 1.2 to 1.18 using the performance of his own tool "when compiled using each released version of Go from 1.2 (the earliest version I could download) to 1.18 (which is in beta now)." As you might expect (or hope, rather), Go has picked up the pace over recent versions. "Overall, countwords is now about 5x as fast as it would have been with Go 1.2, and sumloop is 14x as fast! (Though I first released GoAWK when Go was already at version 1.11, so it wasn't around for the huge early gains.)," Hoyt writes. "For an actively-developed compiler like Go, it's cool to be able to get performance improvements just by waiting and letting others do all the hard work. :-)" <div class="share_submission" style="position:relative;"><a class="slashpop" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Golang's+Most-Downloaded+Beta+Ever+Brings+Support+for+Generics%2C+Fuzzing%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F35TeX2z"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png" /></a> <a class="slashpop" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fdevelopers.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F22%2F02%2F05%2F0111214%2Fgolangs-most-downloaded-beta-ever-brings-support-for-generics-fuzzing%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png" /></a></div> <p><a href="https://developers.slashdot.org/story/22/02/05/0111214/golangs-most-downloaded-beta-ever-brings-support-for-generics-fuzzing?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&amp;utm_medium=feed">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <iframe src="https://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?op=discuss&amp;id=20735463&amp;smallembed=1" style="height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;"></iframe><br /> <br /> from Slashdot https://ift.tt/4yc50up<br /> via <a href="https://ifttt.com/?ref=da&amp;site=blogger">IFTTT</a> mshakeelsahilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10872964509307176630noreply@blogger.com